The Bane of Tartarus
by wolf.of.the.forgiven95
Summary: The minor gods of Olympus have never played a strong role in the lives of heroes. It's time for that to change. It's time for one of them to get the glory and they need a champion to do it
1. Chapter 1

**The Bane of Tartarus**

_Maybe this will be good for me,_ I think to myself as my dad pulls up to the side of the street. New York City was a lot bigger than I had initially expected, not to mention crazier. The sights, the smells, the crowds, the people who don't seem to notice or even care about anything outside of their bubble of life- it was all incredibly intimidating for a Scottish teenager who had never seen anything outside of his father's land. Getting of the plane, my lunch might have risen if it wasn't for my father.

From birth, my father had trained my brother and I in what he called the "Ancient Arts." He told us we needed to be strong. He drilled into us every chance he could that we needed to control our emotions, yet always be able to show them. We must never show weakness. We must never show pain. But most of all, we must never use the abilities we were born with unless it was a last resort.

I could never help the feeling that he was wrong. As he turned off the car, I had a feeling something was about to happen, and it was unnerving. I didn't know what was about to happen. Was he about to tell us he was wrong? Was he about to throw us into the unknown? Whatever it was, I could tell that the next few moments would change my life forever.

He turned to look at us in the back seat, and I could see the sadness in his eyes. He never showed that. This was eating him up. It was destroying him. He hesitated, making me crave to know what it was he was about to tell us. All my brother and I knew was that he said he was going to help us to learn to master our abilities further.

His voice didn't crack as he spoke, "You must learn to further control what I have taught you. Use them only as a last resort but learn what I could never teach you myself. Learn to make them evolve. Have ingenuity and be innovative with how you use them. Strengthen your minds and grow to become better warriors through what you use them for." He got even more serious, if that was possible, "And discover what you fight for."

My brother and I looked at each other in confusion. We wanted to speak. We had so many questions, but we knew not to ask. We knew from our training that this situation was needed of patience. Not of curiosity. We stepped out of the car with him and stood by the summit of a hill, the top of which had a large pine tree.

"This is half-blood hill," Our father continued, "Behind it is a valley with a camp for people..." he hesitated, "Like you both. Go there and talk to a man named Chiron. He will help you in your journey. Just... be prepared for what you may find. But you both are Strollands. You can handle anything that comes at you."

He was right. As nervous as we were, we were Strolland men. We were warriors and we would face any challenge and any enemy that came our way, no matter how fearsome. I, Dante, with my wit, my charm, and my intellect. My twin brother, Jacob, with his strength, speed, and dexterity. He with his long sword, and I with my dagger, both made from obsidian; we were both forces to be wary of. And on the occasions when we fought together, we were unstoppable. Fraternal twins, we were. I had my chiseled features, piercing blue eyes, and thick, parted, golden blonde hair; while he had his shoulder length mane of fiery red, pronounced features and a taller, stronger, stature. I was the charm, and he was the muscle. I was the strategist, and he was the fighter. We were opposites that would never come close to being the same, but we complimented each other perfectly.

Our father looks at us and gives us one last phrase, "Good-bye, my sons," before getting in the car and leaving us to fend for ourselves. _Looks like the unknown it is,_ I think.

My brother and I look at each other and nod with a mutual understanding of what we must do. In my head, something our father had said to us before we left Scotland plays over and over in my mind as we climb. _The day is quickly approaching when you will know who your mother is._ Pure energy, the source of my brothers and my abilities, dances across my fingers in anticipation of when that day will be, who she is, what she's like, and what I will say to her when I meet her.

We reach the top of the hill. Our jaws dropped at the sight before us. Strawberry fields, a small arena like the Roman Coliseum, stables with horses with wings, dozens of intricately made cabins arranged in a U around a giant hearth, but most surprising (yes, even more surprising than the winged horses) was how many people there were. There were over one hundred people around, no younger than nine and no older than twenty, were running around the area. They were so many. They were so different.

And according to my father, they were just like us.

A man on a horse rode up to us. No. That wasn't a man on a horse. The man was _part _of the horse. From the waist down, a not yet elderly man with a long beard and in a tweed jacket was a white stallion. He rode up to us, bow and a quiver of arrows strapped to his back, and spoke to us, "Ah. So you must be the Strolland brothers." He gave us a warm and friendly smile, "I am Chiron. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Hey guys. Sorry this took so long to get up. I have been more or less preoccupied lately, but just so you know, I DO NOT PLAN ON ABANDONING THIS STORY. Alright, now that that's out of the way, I do not own PJO or HoO or any of its fictional characters or places. Enjoy :)**_

**Chapter 2**

My father had said that the people of this place were like me, but I had to disagree. The people here were nothing but idiots.

As we were walking down the hill, trying to keep up with Chiron whom we still had trouble believing was actually a horse from the waist down, we tried to take in our surroundings. I took notice of the cabins off in the distance. Each one was different. Every single one seemed to have a different kind of theme to it, like one was built larger than the rest with Grecian columns like a bank, while another one had barbed wire and fake booby traps as if it was a base for evil mercenaries. One of them, though, did catch my attention more than the rest. There were about twelve cabins that were older than the rest and a few more outside of the U that were still being built. One of the newer ones... I didn't know what it was, but... I could almost feel it's energy, even from all the way where I was from it. Part of the training my dad put me and my brother through was to sense the energy that is in the world, and this cabin had some of the same kind of energy that we shared.

My attention snapped back to reality when Jacob smacked his hand on my chest to stop me from walking any further. I didn't realize I was still going. Sometimes my ADHD does get away from me and I really can't stand it. We stopped by the blue, four-story farm house we had seen from the hill. There was a deck that wrapped all around the perimeter of the building, and at one of the corners was a table with a man and two teenage looking guys around it.

The man was obviously someone who knew the taste of alcohol. I didn't need to be any closer to sense the withdrawal coming from him. Something else was off, though... he had an energy signature that was unlike anything I had ever encountered. I mean, sure, my brother and I had weird energy because of our abilities, and the centaur because he wasn't human, but no matter what, there was always a kind of familiarity to everyone's signature. Every signature was different, but if you had anything human about you, you would have the energy of a human. There was something different about this man, though. He felt nothing like a human when I sensed him. Not like a human at all.

I decided to fish around the Ethereal Plane a bit and examined everything around me. A thousand different energy signatures hit my senses, but I pulled a few out and categorized the differences. Three majors off of me and Jacob- our unique signatures with our levels of power, our humanity, and our abilities. For Chiron- half human and half animal. Perhaps I was wrong about him not being a centaur... Plus, his energy seemed incredibly old, like he had been around for a few millennia. Ok, I had to be hallucinating on that one. Next, were the two guys- again, half human and animal. A different animal this time. I had to be losing my mind.

When I tried to focus on the alcoholic in a leopard skin Hawaiian jogging suit, my head burned. It felt like a hole opened in the middle of my skull that started spewing lava and filled my eyes with acid. My vision blurred and I snapped myself out of my meditation. The man's voice called from the table, "Next time you try to find what makes a person tick, you should try the direct approach or they might just turn you into a dolphin with a taste for magic."

Jacob and I were walking up the steps when he said this. As soon as the words came form his mouth, we froze dead in our tracks, the color drained from our faces. No one who was anything normal knew about what my brother and I could do. Who was this guy? How did he know about us, and what kind of power did he possess to know?

"You will have to excuse our camp director," Chiron said calmly as he trotted up ahead of us, "He is still bitter from the punishment of the last offense he made to his father."

Mr. D eyed the centaur carefully. The look in his eyes made me think he was about to vaporize the horse-man, and the two teens even tensed in their seats, trying to be inconspicuous and... eating metal soda cans. What, were these guys? Goats? Anyway, the drunk, leopard wannabe leaned in close and was either about to scold Chiron or change his physical form. I stumbled at the laid back way he spoke next. "You said that to another camper almost four years ago. Losing our originality, are we?"

The two old men shared a light, serious laugh and the teens slumped back in their chairs. If these guys _were_ anything like me, then it wouldn't surprise me that they were cautious of the drunk, but I couldn't sense any magical aura off of them.

Chiron looked at me and Jacob and waved at us to sit down. "Please," he said, "Join us."

Cautiously, eyeing Mr. D, my brother and I sat down, almost fighting for the seat farthest from him. He waved his hand in a circular motion, clearly going for a spell. My brother and I almost put up shields to protect ourselves for what was to come, and went numb when he summoned a couple cans of diet coke.

We waited for whatever was going to happen. We had been pulled into enough meetings with dad to know that these men wanted to lecture us on something, and the waiting was unbearable. Finally, Chiron took a sip of his drink and asked us a question with a very calm demeanor. "Jacob, Dante," he started, "Do you know what you are?"

Jacob and I glanced at one another. The question admittedly caught us off guard and made us unsure how to respond. We couldn't tell him what we really were could we? "You don't have to be afraid," he continued, seemingly reading our minds, "We already know. This is not the first time we have ever dealt with special people like you." We palmed our weapons anxiously. "You should know that if we wanted to expose you, or use you for our own selfish ends, or even harm you, we would have done it sooner. This summer camp is a safe haven for adolescents with special gifts such as yourself. I assure you, you can trust anyone here."

Mr. D slammed his can down and grunted with effort. "They don't believe you Chiron. They may be skilled already, but until they understand what they are dealing with, they will never be great heroes."

_Heroes..._ I echoed in my mind, _No way. Could the stories father has been telling us actually be true? That must mean... _"You're Dionysus," I stuttered, stunned from this turn of events, "Aren't you? And the stories about Hercules and Odysseus and all those guys. They were all true weren't they?" Thundered rumbled in the sky and Chiron cantered in place nervously. The other man who was probably a Greek god looked skyward and let out a huge groan while I looked at the centaur and the two silent teenagers for answers.

Now, I know it may seem like I believed this a little fast. I mean, any normal teenager who grew up hearing that those stories were myths that explained nature before we had strong science would not be hearing any of this as true and would think all these guys belonged in a mental hospital. Even if one of them was half horse from the waist down, and the other two teens had shaggy fur for legs and hooves for feet, (which I only saw after I decided to pay attention to it) that stuff could easily be faked, right? The only reason I believed this so quick was that I was not a normal kid. And I knew it. And the way my father always explained the Greek legends as if they were true just solidified my belief.

Before I go any further, I want to make something perfectly clear. I am _not,_ in _any way,_ a normal seventeen year old. Neither is my brother. The two of us are about as normal as a unicorn eating at your lunch table during spring break that you have to spend at school. My brother and I have... a certain way with... weather, let's call it, that we have never known anyone else to have, and that's the way I personally wanted to keep it. I didn't want anyone in normal life to know about what Jacob and I are able to do, and I didn't want to know if anyone else can do it. But sitting there, with me assuming that these guys consider _this _as their version of normal... I kind of lost it.

I stood up and planted my hands on the card table. "Please, sir," I pleaded, "You have to tell me if this is actually real. Are you really the Greek god of wine, is Chiron really a centaur, are these two satyrs, and is there anyone else here like me and my brother?" I waved my hand erratically towards the red-headed warrior for emphasis and he shot up and tried to get me back down, covering my impulse.

"Dante, shut up," he whispered to me harshly. Then to the others, "It's been a long trip. He just needs to rest his mind. He does get in his head and loses himself in his thoughts every once in awhile." The last part was spoken through nervous laughter.

I shrugged him off, then almost yelled at him, "Get off me! Can't you see it, brother? Our father was right! All those stories he told us-"

Thunder rumbled and an energy signature at the table blasted at us. The effect of that much energy coming at us once was by far the most painful and intense thing I had ever experienced, and I knew the spike was directed only at us. No one else would know what was wrong. Jacob and I threw our hands to our temples and screamed out of the pain. The way we screamed... people all over the camp probably heard us. The pain in our heads felt like they were being pressed by metal balls at our temples with some kind of industrial strength. I thought I was going to die if this kept up.

Through my pain, I heard mumbling, then the energy signature died down as quickly as it had come and Mr. D said, "Oh, Chiron. Must you always ruin my fun?"

The activities director ignored the question and checked on me and my brother. After making sure we were both ok, he looked to one of the satyrs and told him to show us around camp, as well as letting us know dinner would be ready in about an hour. I looked at Jacob. He had sweat on his brow and a crazy look in his eye, like he couldn't believe what he just sensed. The satyr introduced himself as Grover and led us to the cabins, telling us everything about the camp, like how it was the only safe place for demigods, how much of a role the gods took in the lives of their children, how each cabin signified a different godly parent and how the campers were assigned a cabin based on theirs. It was really a lot to take in. This morning, I had just been a guy on a vacation with his dad and brother. Now, I was going to be staying at a camp for the rest of my life after finding out that Greek myths about gods and monsters and demigods were all real.

We passed by the cabins. There were about twenty of them, all arranged in a U around one big hearth. Each and every cabin was different. There was one that looked a doll house for a Barbie, one that was big and gold with columns like a bank, but one of them in the back especially caught my eye. A few of the cabins on the outer ring were still being built. The one that especially interested me, though, was the one being made of black stone with a domed roof. The bricks were each about the size of a cinder block with silver, cursive writing on them that I could almost recognize as some kind of incantation, but they were in another language, so I wasn't sure. I just had the feeling that if one of them dropped, it would turn the buildings into swans and the people into rocks if they were within a mile. Magic.

I went over to the girl who was overseeing the construction. She looked to be about sixteen and had dark hair and piercing features, like her eyes could slit your throat if she sneered at you. She had hybrid eyes, one blue and one auburn, and a slender build. She looked kind of punk rock, to be honest. Her hair hung just above her shoulders and she threw it over head to one side. Her jacket was dark black leather, her pants were black with rips in the thighs and shins. On her feet were spiked combat boots.

Most importantly, I could sense magic on her.

I tried my luck. "Hey," I said, coming up beside her.

"I could sense you coming up, pretty boy," was her response, then she turned to me, "Your aura is pretty strong. I'm Lou Ellen. Head counselor of the Hecate cabin."


End file.
